Auf Dinge, die nicht mehr zu ändern sind, / Muss auch kein Blick zurück mehr fallen! Was / Gethan ist, ist gethan und bleibtsOn things which are no more to be changed a backward glance must be no longer cast! What is done is done, and so remains.

Eternity of being and well-being simply for being and well-beings sake, is an ideal belonging to appetite alone, and which only the struggle of mere animalism (Thierheit), longing to be infinite gives rise to.

Fear not the confusion (Verwirrung) outside of thee, but that within thee; strive after unity, but seek it not in uniformity; strive after repose, but through the equipoise, not through the stagnation (Stillstand), of thy activity.

Gutes aus Gutem, das kann jedweder Verständige bilden; / Aber der Genius ruft Gutes aus Schlechtem hervorGood out of good is what every man of intellect can fashion, but it takes genius to evoke good out of bad.

Hier ist keine HeimatJeder treibt / Sich an dem andern rasch und fremd vortüber, / Und fragt nicht nach seinem SchmerzHere is no home for a man: every one drives past another hastily and unneighbourly, and inquires not after his pain.

Jeden anderen Meister erkennt man an dem, was er ausspricht; was er weiss, verschweigt, zeigt mir den Meister des StylsEvery other master may be known by what he expresses; what he wisely suppresses reveals to me the master of style.

Jeder, sieht man ihn einzeln, ist leidlich klug und verständig; / Sind sie in corpori, gleich wird euch ein Dummkopf darausEvery man, as we see him singly, is tolerably wise and intelligent; but see him in a corporate capacity, and you think him a born blockhead and fool.

Joy is the mainspring in the whole round of universal Nature; joy moves the wheels of the great timepiece of the world; she it is that loosens flowers from their buds, suns from their firmaments, rolling spheres in distant space not seen by the glass of the astronomer.

Liberty, with all its drawbacks, is everywhere vastly more attractive to a noble soul than good social order without it, than society like a flock of sheep, or a machine working like a watch. This mechanism makes of man only a product; liberty makes him the citizen of a better world.

Mein Sohn, nichts in der Welt ist unbedeutend. / Das erste aber und Hauptsächlichste / Bei allem irdschen Ding ist Ort und StundeMy son, nothing in this world is without significance, but the first and most essential matter in every earthly thing is the place where and the hour when.

Nicht an die Güter hänge dein Herz, / Die das Leben vergänglich zieren! / Wer besitzt, der lerne verlieren; / Wer im Glück ist, der lerne den Schmerz!Let not thy heart cling to the things which for so short a time deck out thy life. Let him who has, learn to lose, and him who is happy, familiarise himself with what may give pain.

To escape from arrangements that tortured me, my heart sought refuge in the world of ideas, when as yet I was unacquainted with the world of realities, from which iron bars excluded me. At his training-school.

What distinguishes Christianity from all monotheistic religions lies in nothing else than in a making-dead to the law, the removal of the Kantian imperative; instead of which Christianity requires a free inclination.